Mark Applebaum’s The Metaphysics of Notation is a musical composition based on a purely graphic score with no written or verbal instructions. For a whole year, this document, which more closely resembles abstract art than traditional notation, hung on a series of panels and mobiles in the Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University, its quirky shapes inspiring 45 of Mark’s fellow composers and other players to improvise their little hearts out. Push “Play” on this DVD, and you’ll encounter musicians who play instruments not to form a song, but to play with space. And there’s plenty of that in the Cantor, which supplies a long natural reverb. A one-minute excerpt from each musician’s performance was masterfully edited together by Mark to form one long, flowing, 45-minute piece complete with a slide show of the players. (Unfortunately, these photos look kind of grey, as if they were uploaded straight out of a point-and-shoot camera and left as is. Someone should have elbowed Mark out of the way to boost the contrast and sharpen those pups!)

The music, which is available in surround sound or stereo, cross fades from thorny acoustic improv to laptop drones, from crazily playful accapella vocalizations to electric guitar abstractions, from piping flutes to gurgling synthesizers and so much more. Soloists, duos, trios, ensembles, they’re all here, ya hear? And the bonus features include eight and 16-minute scrolling versions of the score for you to realize your own version at home. (I hope to give it a shot myself someday!) There’s also a nicely filmed documentary on the piece and its composer, with his shock of wild hair and colorful glasses that match his attire, along with commentary from peers, friends and family. Any and all fans of free improvisation and avant-garde classical would do well to pick up a copy of this fine DVD.

Label: Innova Catalog Number: Innova 787 Format: DVD Packaging: Digi-Pak Tracks: 3 Total Time: 73 minutes Country: United States Released: 2010 More: Amazon, Official, Wikipedia, YouTube

Text ©2011 Arcane Candy

Mark Applebaum (born 1967) is a composer of solo, chamber, choral, orchestral, operatic and electro-acoustic music, and a jazz pianist who also builds sound sculptures. He earned a Ph.D. in composition from the University of California, San Diego and is now the Associate Professor of Composition and Theory at Stanford University. Asylum is a collection of nine tracks that translate mental illness into music. Clocking in at 22 minutes, the opener, “The Blue Cloak,” is a composed sprawler that sounds for all the world like a lengthy acoustic free improv workout, what with its never-ending layers of outbursts from clarinet, electronics, flute, mouseketier (one of Mark’s electro-acoustic sound sculptures), percussion, piano and violin. But, rest assured that it’s completely notated, as it offers up a detailed sonic tour of a wimmelbild painting (in which masses of small figures create one large scene) called the Netherlandish Proverbs (1559).

“DNA” continues a similar approach and feeling with only a solo acoustic guitar that offers up a series of complex runs punctuated by jabbing single notes; followed in likewise manner by a Conlon Nancarrow-inspired piano, violin and cello trio who scrape, tap, and trill the day away across a prickly “Landscape.” A piece for percussion duo called “Go, Dog. Go!” claims to ape classic rock riffs and beats, but frankly, it’s hard to tell. The title track continues where the opener left off and shuts the disc down with five sections of more composed free-sounding clatter packed tight with explosions of cello, clarinet, contrabass, flute, guitar, horn, percussion, trombone, viola and violin. The highlight comes from an unlikely yet humorous source–an incessant typewriter that pecks away and someone who repeatedly pounds a hammer onto a nail. The whole shebang comes complete with a thick-ass booklet that contains the most copious liner notes ever crammed into a CD booklet.

Label: Innova Catalog Number: 666 Format: CD Packaging: Jewel case Tracks: 9 Total Time: 72:42 Country: United States Released: 2006 More: Atlanta Center For the Arts, Discogs, Forced Exposure, Last.FM, Official, Napster, Stanford Magazine, YouTube

Text ©2009 Arcane Candy